With the Mercedes Benz G-Wagon set to become the most numerous vehicle in Australian military service, Defence is testing a health monitoring system that will help save money and get the best out of the fleet across a service life that may span more than three decades.
Philip Smart | Adelaide
Project Land 121 Phase 3A is delivering 2146 lightweight (4x4) and light (6x6) MercedesBenz G-Wagons and 1799 matching Haulmark trailers to defence force units, as well as 122 general maintenance vehicles (GMV) and 18 line-laying modules on behalf of Land 121 Phase 3B.
The basic vehicles have been built in the Mercedes Benz plant in Austria, then shipped to a facility in Melbourne for fit out and integration of role modules built by Australian company G.H. Varley. There are eight variants, from four-wheeled panel vans and wagons to the six-wheel-drive dual-cab variants, ambulances, canine unit transport, reconnaissance vehicles and command posts.
So far more than 1,600 vehicles and 1,300 trailers have been delivered. The most recent G-Wagon variant to enter service was the surveillance and reconnaissance vehicle, which was handed over to Regional Force Surveillance Units (including NORFORCE) throughout northern Australia between July 2014 and July 2015. All deliveries under the Phase 3A scope as well as the line-laying variants are scheduled for completion in the second half of 2016, with the GMV to be delivered from 2017.
G-Wagons are now in service with numerous Army and Air Force units including all three of the main combat brigades: the 1st Brigade in Darwin, the 3rd Brigade in Townsville and the 7th Brigade in Brisbane.
And they are already earning their keep, providing transport in Operation Vanuatu Assist, which saw the 3rd Brigade provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the aftermath of Cyclone Pam, and active in the recent Exercise Talisman Sabre 2015. According to Defence, the vehicles are proving to be a welcome replacement for the ageing Land Rovers.
“In addition to improved comfort, users have welcomed the capabilities provided by the automatic gearbox, power-steering, improved acceleration and high levels of usable power,” said an ADF spokesperson. “The vehicles handle extremely well off-road, and have proven capable of getting out of a variety of difficult off-road situations.”
In 2008 Defence and Mercedes Benz agreed an initial 15-year support contract, with three potential extensions of seven years each. But Australia is also implementing its own Vehicle Health and Usage Monitoring (VHUMS) program, which will place sensors at specific points around the vehicle to monitor and record the health of major components.
The G-Wagon project is part of a larger VHUMS initiative that will also see Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles, M1A1 Abrams tanks and M113 fleets fitted with data collection systems. Early estimates suggest that Army may save as much as eight percent on maintenance costs with VHUMS, which has the power to affect everything from maintenance scheduling to freight costs and manning levels.
If the test system finds its way in to general service, mobile and Wi-Fi systems on each vehicle will upload collected data in to the Military Integrated Logistics System (MILIS), providing both troubleshooting and wear and tear information about individual vehicles, but also a comprehensive database that may help provide early warning of any fleet-wide issues.
No.24 Sqn APS Mechanic Simon Curnow checks the oil on a G-Wagon. Credit: Defence
Defence has already conducted a ‘proof of concept’ installation of the Vehicle Health and Usage Monitoring System on 16 G-Wagon vehicles belonging to the Land 121 Training Team at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland.
Based on the results of this activity, Defence is now in the process of fitting an expanded system to 50 vehicles in the 7th Brigade at the Army School of Transport (Puckapunyal, Victoria) and at the Land Engineering Agency (Monegeetta, near Melbourne). This system is fitted with additional sensors and with both 3G/4G and Wi-Fi data transfer, and will provide a larger data sample to inform decisions on servicing, maintenance and usage patterns.
“We are already starting to see some of the benefits envisaged in the early stages of implementation with respect to maintenance and repair costs,” said a Defence spokesperson of the system. But it’s not just about measuring wear and tear – VHUMS has the ability to provide good data on how to drive the vehicles in a way that conserves them.
“The G-Wagon VHUMS is also designed to assist users by providing feedback on driver behaviour – an example being the ability for driver trainers to monitor vehicle locations and serviceability in real time from a central location.
“Indeed, one of the vehicles is also fitted with an in-vehicle display to inform discussion regarding what information would be immediately useful to the vehicle crew. As the system use matures, Defence is confident that it will deliver benefits in administrative, service and maintenance aspects of vehicle operation.”
HUMS is not a new phenomenon and various systems are already in military service in Britain, Canada, Switzerland and the US. The offshore oil and gas industry has employed such systems in helicopters since the 1990s, tracking critical rotor, engine and transmission parameters. In that field HUMS has been credited with saving lives by flagging potential failures in critical components.
Helicopter HUMS
Early helicopter HUMS systems were designed to activate during predefined phases of flight such as level cruise at altitude, record data for a defined time and then write the results to a card that would be removed from the aircraft for download as part of post-flight maintenance. But the all-pervading presence of mobile telephony and broadband means today’s systems can offer continuous or staged data transfer. For land vehicles, this means a Wi-Fi or 3G/4G system will update whether the vehicle is on the hoist in the workshop or parked in the desert on exercise.
HUMS sensors can be installed to record a variety of parameters beyond the obvious vehicle speed and engine temperature, to include oil density, battery charge, turbo boost pressure, throttle position, even the movement of the driver’s seat. They can also be linked with a GPS system that records position and altitude, helping determine altitude above sea level, latitude and heading.
In a paper delivered at the 15th Australian International Aerospace Congress, Australian HUMS project personnel said early testing had identified numerous examples of where data mining could reduce the through-life cost of vehicle operations by seeing how equipment is used. These included an instance where an investigation into the sudden replacement of previously healthy batteries found they had completely discharged after the vehicle was accidentally left for six days without being switched off. Another data point showed that an M113 tracked vehicle engaged in training spent as much as 50 per cent of its time idling, accounting for 20 per cent of its total fuel consumption over the test period.
The use of VHUMS is one of several decision-making tools that will support the vehicles over their lifecycle. VHUMS data, in conjunction with other measures such as oil sampling, will contribute to improving servicing regimes, driver behaviours, and rates of effort, and other factors. It will also help predict failure points, which enables early decision making for preventative work, thereby avoiding failures and improving vehicle availability.